Two Examples of Why Religious Freedom is a Big Issue You Need To Get Your Head Around

My next book is called Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government and is coming out in May for $18. I have written this book because there is now a confusing intersection between law, government, education, religion, secularism, conspiracy theories, and houses of worship. And trust me, it is more relevant to you than you might know. That is because we are seeing more conflicts between government and religion than ever before. These conflicts are happening mainly in the context of LGBTI+ rights and government pandemic mandates.

Let me give two examples from just last week as to how this has played out in Australia.

Citipointe Christian College and its “Contract”

Citipointe Christian College is a Christian school operated by the Christian Outreach Center denomination (i.e., Pentecostal) in Brisbane, Australia. A few days before the new school year began, parents were sent a letter requiring them to sign a contract as a condition of enrolling their children. In this letter, the Citipoint principal, Pastor Brian Mulheran, stated that the contract’s purpose was to “ensure that we retain our Christian ethos, which is the foundation of what has made the College what it is today.” As such, Citipointe said that it would only enroll students “on the basis of the gender that corresponds to their biological sex” and further stated that “any form of sexual immorality (including but not limited to; adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, bisexual acts, bestiality, incest, pedophilia, and pornography) is sinful and offensive to God and is destructive to human relationships and society.”

As you can imagine this created an uproar in the local and national media, Citipointe initially doubled down on the contract, but under the sheer weight of public criticism, parental complaints, and threats of losing accreditation, they rescinded the contract and publicly apologized.

Now I can understand Citipointe wanting to be upfront and transparent about its beliefs and expectations for prospective students, parents, staff, and faculty. In fact, the notion that religious schools should be open about their religious beliefs is something that was recommended by the Ruddock Review into religious freedom in Australia. Furthermore, religious communities do have beliefs that pertain to family, marriage, and sexuality, and Citipointe is entitled to hold its beliefs on these matters.

However, the contract was problematic for legal, theological, and pastoral reasons.

First, even as a private school, Citipointe still receives some government funding, so it was always going to face accreditation issues on the basis of violating anti-discrimination laws in the contract. The contract Citipointe sent out seems to be modeled on a template for American Christians schools created by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an American conservative Christian religious freedom advocacy group. The ADF does do some good work, but its advice to schools doesn’t translate well into the Australian context where governments and religious communities are a little more intertwined in the education sector.

Second, the equation of homosexuality and transgenderism with pedophilia and bestiality is a terrible moral equivalency. I mean, I’m pretty conservative in my theology of sexuality, and this is just cringy and alarming.

Third, Citipointe showed a complete lack of pastoral care for students who experience same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria. Let me tell you something, I’ve spoken to 15-year-old church kids, who know they are gay, and who go to bed every night praying, “Oh God, please change me.” I know families who have children who experience gender dysphoria, especially among those on the autism spectrum. Whether you are Catholic or Baptist, we need not forfeit a theology of human sexuality by simply showing compassion, kindness, and understanding to kids who are different or who are in the process of working things out.

Australian Presbyterian pastor, Nathan Campbell, who writes for TGC-Australia no less, wrote a really good open letter to the children and teenagers at Citipointe College which I really do recommend.

Fourth, I also recommend all Christian school administrators read a recent article by Julia Smith on “SOGI statements and LGBT+ student care in Christian schools” published in the International Journal of Christianity and Education (2021). I disagree with Smith on a few things like what is “intersex” and causes of gender dysphoria, but Smith suggests a range of practices that would improve LGBT+ student safety and support in Christian schools that hold a traditional view of marriage.

To sum it up, Catholic and Evangelical Christians working in the education sector and the public square need to get their head around a way of accomodating LGBTI+ persons as much as they can within the precincts of their own conscience. People of faith, whether Methodist or Muslim, need to avoid subjecting sexual minorities to harassment and unfair discrimination yet without allowing the government to run roughshod over people’s sincere religious beliefs because they don’t hold to the ever-evolving progressive orthodoxy. But … it will be a hard equilibrium to attain depending on your religious, political, cultural, and legal setting.

Which is kind of what I write about in my forthcoming book. So maybe you should, I don’t know, pre-order it!

A Catholic Church Perth

Australian federal and state governments have taken a strong and direct approach to combating the COVID pandemic. Some of the restrictions have upset libertarians, but it has been bearable for the most part, and it has meant that we did not suffer the same fatalities as places like North America.

However, there are a few instances where I think the government has overstepped the mark.

To give one example, a week ago, over in the Western Australian city of Perth, a policeman entered St. Barnadettes’ Catholic church during an evening Mass, stopped the service, and demanded to see everyone’s vaccination certificates and mask exemptions. You can read about it here or listen to an eyewitness account narrated on Liam Bartlett’s talk radio show. To be honest, I found this truly shocking and disturbing.

Look, I can understand the police checking vaccination certificates at the front of the church before the service started if there were legitimate grounds for it. But to “raid” a church service, force the priest to suspend religious worship, for a Stasi-esque, “Show me your papers” kind of thing is not what you’d expect in a country with civil rights and liberties. The police are not doing snap inspections at casinos, weddings, and branch meetings of the ruling political party. This was either a bad judgment by some patrol commander or a concerted act of harassment.

According to international law, governments can restrict religious freedom for the sake of public safety, however, you need to show due cause, the equal distribution of the burden of restricting freedoms, and governments cannot target specific groups for extra scrutiny and restrictions. I would not be surprised to learn that a very progressive and soft authoritarian state government had decided to target Catholics.

So what should the faithful do when progressive governments start to take needless punitive measures against them? Glad you asked because, yes, that’s another thing I cover in my book, which you can pre-order if you haven’t already done so.

So while many people ask me, “Mike, you’re not a lawyer, so why the heck did you write a book on religious freedom,” well, this week gone by has shown that maybe it was a good idea after all.